Coordinator of the Yizkor-Books-In-Print project of Yizkor Books at JewishGen.org Editor of the English translation and new appendix. Israeli educator. Former resident of Yurburg, Lithuania Deceased.
Joel Alpert has set a new benchmark for Ytzkor books and memorial projects with his editing of this work. The abundance of photos, records, personal accounts, and other research materials are well organized. The translation of original Yiddish and Hebrew first person narratives and memories is valuable for future generations and researchers who may lack Yiddish and Hebrew reading skills. As for families whose ancestors came from Yurburg, this book is a must for their children. It is a blessing of memories for them. The work also can be used as an ongoing and living project for families of Jurburg descent. The book has openned up doors of research in finding unknown relatives and in putting together puzzles of our own family history. It may be worth while for other older Yitzkor books to be re-edited, translated and expanded in the fashion of Joel Alpert. This book is a must read and a model for any Yitzkor yet to be published. Joel Alpert has produced a legacy to be handed down from generation to generation. When your immigrant family members are gone and the stories are buried with them, you can turn to this book and remember what it must have been like to live in a village in Lithuania during those good and bad days. 5.0 out of 5 stars... book of loving community and tragedy By G. Rudmin on December 9, 2006 I know the editor of this book, this "collection of stories". I related to him how, when passing through "Jurbarkas" in 1996, that I felt the town was full of spirits, though not haunted. This was before I knew about "Yurburg". I want to describe the book as "wonderful" but it's a book of loving community and tragedy. I'm of Lithuanian descent and not of Jewish descent. Through family vignettes and "remembrances" the book describes the wonderful contemporary life of the Jewish community in greater Yurburg (Jurbarkas in Lithuanian) in the first half of the 20th century leading up to the destruction of the community by the invading Germans and supportive Lithuanians. When reading this book of love and tragedy, all should remember just how close to savagery each of us are. In Faust the great German philosopher/writer Goethe wrote in describing man, "Er nennt's Vernunft und braucht es nur tierischer als jedes Tier zu sein." ("Man calls it reason and uses it only to be more animalistic than any animal.") Certainly, every educated German, moreso then than now, read and has read Goethe's Faust. How ironic that Goethe's words presaged the conduct of German "civility", that unleashed the massacre of the Jewish communities in the Holocaust.
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